Here’s what it’s like to be a vulnerable person, sanctioned by a work programme provider (you know, the ones paid by results) and having to live on a food budget of £3.50 a week. It’s enough to make you weep.
How does it feel to be “living” on a budget for food of £3.50 a week? Kevin Jobbins is doing exactly that, but the more you think about it, the less appropriate the concept of existence or survival seems in this context. To survive conjures up images of Everest expeditions – involving a set of risks voluntarily endured by explorers who’ve personally opted to challenge their own physical and emotional limitations.
Kevin, on the other hand, came into the Greenwich Foodbank because he’s not surviving. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has failed to reinstate his benefits following a sanction in April. Kevin is 39, and is receiving employment and support allowance (ESA). He’s waiting to go into detox treatment for drug and alcohol issues and is also on the waiting list for surgery on his feet for problems linked to his time as a homeless person. Despite his multiple health issues, he was registered with a Seetec job club.
He was sanctioned for missing an appointment with Seetec. He says he had no option, as he had to look after his two year old son that day. Since April his benefit rate has plunged from £202 a fortnight to £47. He says that Seetec have told him the sanction has been lifted, but that the job centre in Woolwich says it hasn’t. His housing benefit was stopped as a result, but has now been restarted. But out of the £47 he has to pay £9 for council tax, £10 as a contribution to rent, £10 for electricity and £10 for gas. So that leaves about £3.50 for food.
The result? “I’m begging for food or nicking stuff. I got caught in Tesco. I’m also paying £10 a fortnight in court fines. This is the first time I’ve had to use a food bank. I’m angry. I don’t think I should have to beg for food. I should have my money reinstated. I am literally living hand to mouth.” Kevin, who’s on pain medication, adds: ‘”If I can’t nick a sandwich from Greggs I try to beg a couple of pot noodles.”
Should Kevin have been referred to the Work Programme given the extent of his health and addiction problems, and what help has it been to him? The sanction this ill man had imposed on him for not turning up to an appointment has done nothing other than to push his life further into chaos and undoubtedly towards worse health.
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